Joseph Holmes

Writer | Film Critic | Book Reviewer

New York Times, Relevant, Christianity Today, Forbes, EWTN, World Magazine, The Dispatch, and Religion Unplugged

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

Want to help more people "Jim vs the Future"? Give the film a five star review on Amazon or IMDB! It really helps it rise in the rankings. Be a part of spreading the film's message of thoughtful hope!

Prime: https://t.co/jYj69lPFf2

Imdb: https://t.co/zycBepEg2J

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

Doesn't surprise me. Most of the evening showtimes of this movie have been sold out at my theater. Word of mouth is making THE must-see movie of the year.

[DiscussingFilm @DiscussingFilm]

‘YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING’ earned $19.5M in its second weekend, a 25% increase from its opening weekend.

It is tracking to become one of the highest grossing non-music documentaries of the century.

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

This is the correct question. The problem is I suspect most of Hollywood has one answer, and most of James Bond's fans have a different one.

[Aatif Rashid @Aatif_Rashid]

The best Bond movie was made in 2006, so I'm not sure he has to be 20th century. The franchise has always used Bond to reflect the current idea of masculinity--Sean Connery's dapper man in a suit, Daniel Craig's more rugged ruthlessness. So what does 2020s masculinity look like?

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

Worst kept secret

[Chaos Crave @ChaosCrave_]

Sebastian Stan admits he's jealous of Robert Downey Jr. ahead of 'AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY':

"He's not only loved in the MCU but his character is going to last forever, from Iron Man to Dr. Doom and back to Iron Man, he's the face of the MCU."

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

#seated for #IPlayRocky

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

This has been coming a long time-- based on my own experience and people I've talked to. But still very sad. Still, the way it's framed as "its the fault of the right wing Evangelicals" is bad framing. As @bonniekristian notes in her own substack.

@nytimes piece: https://t.co/5PdIL72Hi5

@bonniekristian's take:
https://t.co/IVAPqcUCOU

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

What’s wrong with evangelicals? Are they as bad as what their critics--on both the left and the right--say? Why or why not? NEW episode of The Overthinkers with journalist and author @bonniekristian.

I had the pleasure of writing for her at @CTmagazine back in the day and once again showcases in this interview all her great qualities as a thinker and a person. Now that more people are discovering her through the recent @nytimes piece, people should listen to this episode and like her even more.

Also, @NathanJClarkson and I talk in relative depth about our relative Evangelical and Evangelical-adjacent upbringings in this one. So that's a bonus for those who are all about the #lore.

Listen here:  https://t.co/zvCPpp5dXH

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

I'm not sure if I agree that most people who watch horror lean too hard into watching it in an unhealthy manner or not. Certainly, they might. But even if they do, this response doesn't help us engage with the issue better. It doesn't help us discern the difference between engaging with horror in a healthy or unhealthy way. https://t.co/yM2Beqmqh2

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

Not true @conservmillen. You become courageous by experiencing fear and overcoming it. You become more fearful by avoiding scary things. This is exactly why @JonHaidt calls out "safetyism" for contributing to the mental health crisis. Horror films therefore can make you become courageous by giving you a safe place to experience scary things and make them lose their power over you. Obviously not all Horror films are the same. "Friday the 13th" and "Saw" make evil seem cool. "Halloween" and "The Exorcist" make overcoming evil seem cool. But rejecting horror films because they make you fearful is the wrong solution to the wrong problem.

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

Not true @conservmillen. You become courageous by experiencing fear and overcoming it. You become more fearful by avoiding scary things. This is exactly why @JonHaidt calls out "safetyism" for contributing to the mental health crisis. Horror films therefore can make you become courageous by giving you a safe place to experience scary things and make them lose their power over you. Obviously not all Horror films are the same. "Friday the 13th" and "Saw" make evil seem cool. "Halloween" and "The Exorcist" make overcoming evil seem cool. But rejecting horror films because they make you fearful is the wrong solution to the wrong problem.

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

Love to see it

[Film Updates @FilmUpdates]

‘YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING’ will be submitted for Oscar consideration in the following categories:

• Best Picture
• Best Director
• Best Supporting Actress
• Best Documentary Feature
• Best Production Design
• Best Cinematography
• Best Costume Design
• Best Film Editing
• Best Makeup and Hairstyling
• Best Sound
• Best Original Score

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

@Kin_Loch Don't forget film bros

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

I think this is a key thing that separates people who were blown away by "You Can See Everything" and people who weren't. And it deserves to be taken seriously. And the critics' concerns deserve to be taken seriously.

Here's why I love the movie: Nathan FOREGROUNDS the filmmaking artifice that exists in EVERY documentary whether the filmmaker admits it or not. The average person might think that the more traditonal documentary style makes a documentary more truthful. But people in or near the film community are well aquinted by default with all the ways that all these styliistic choices are just as contrived and manipulated. Nathan making his filmmaking and presence so prominent and open to audience interrogation therefore makes it feel MORE honest to that audience. It isn't hiding the puppet master or the strings. So it empowers the audience as much as is humanly possible to separate the truth from the puppetry, while encouraging deep humility about our limits of ever doing so. In many ways, that makes it a deeply Christian--and perhaps even deeply Protestant--work.

That doesn't mean more traditonal documentaries are bad or people are dupes for watching them. Documentaries that hide the observer help us focus on the subject. But to watch them well we have to watch them with the same awareness of how our view of the subject is being guided that "You Can See Everything" forces us to have whether we want to or not.

[nicole alonso @_nicolealonso]

i seem to be the only person who saw "you can see everything" and didn't like it. a few reasons why:

- the tone felt wrong. the audience was laughing for much of the film, but i don't find the subject matter particularly funny. made it feel like the film was making light of a serious situation, intentionally or not.
- i couldn't tell what was real. how much of this was scripted, rehearsed, or manipulated in the editing room? everyone spoke a little too perfectly for it to be entirely unscripted. the ambiguity made it difficult for me to trust what i was watching.
- nathan felt like an unreliable narrator. his relationship with elizabeth blurred the line between observer and participant, making me question his motives and the film's perspective.
- so many layers of performance...i understand that blurring reality and performance is part of the point, but at some stage, the cleverness started getting in the way of the story. it's one of the most confusing documentaries i've watched from an audience perspective.
- i'm simply tired of elizabeth holmes having a platform.

i'll also be the first to admit that i fell asleep during the middle of it and knew absolutely nothing about nathan fielder going in. both definitely influenced my experience & i will watch it again to see what i missed the first time.

was it interesting and provacative? yes, of course. i'm not arguing with that. but i seem to have missed the genius everyone else saw, but i left feeling like the film was more interested in being clever than in saying something meaningful.

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

The wildest part of this is this is EXACTLY what he sounds like in the documentary

[Variety @Variety]

Elizabeth Holmes' partner Billy Evans admits "she looks insane" in the "You Can See Everything" trailer and says "I might think this is the dumbest thing I have ever done" when he finally sees the movie.

"There's been a lot of media produced on her. There's been a lot of people who have told her story. That narrative is pretty ossified. The whole idea was here she is, see her and make up your own mind. It's not to re-litigate the case. It was to have people see who she is. I have gone through this consistent experience with the people who love me most, from my grandmother to my best friends. They'd hear I knew [Elizabeth Holmes] or I was falling for this person and now we're going to have a kid... in the beginning, every single one of these people thought I was crazy. 'Do you know who she is?' I would tell them, 'I understand why you feel that way but just meet her.' And they would meet her and spend time with her and see her in a totally natural environment, like going on a hike or helping a friend. Every opinion of her would radically shift. That was the intention of the film. To help scale that up and allow other people to sit with her and make up their own minds."

"Am I nervous [for the movie to be seen]? I have been through so many intense, surreal experiences that it takes a bit to raise my blood pressure. With this there's certainly concern but it's ultimately our decision." (via All-In Podcast)

https://t.co/cxrLpMFYgI

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

@tweetmattingly Wouldn't that be nice

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

I think "tried" is likely doing a lot of work here

[NarniaWeb @NarniaWeb]

Greta Gerwig on preparing to write Narnia: The Magician's Nephew:

"I read or re-read everything Lewis wrote. Then I tried to read everything he read."

She also retraced C.S. Lewis's life and steps in Belfast, Cambridge, and Oxford, hoping to better understand the author so that "my instincts would align with his”.

Full report: https://t.co/UaTsWe6gCS

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

Why does everyone act like an expert online now? How does the modern social media ecosystem encourage bad takes and misinformation? @NathanJClarkson and I discuss with super cool media psychology expert Dr. Dannagal Young.

https://t.co/0VsH6BR24r

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

Good interview. Lots of good stuff about how to immerse yourself in a subject to naturally express it in the creative process. And her remarks about focusing on the beauty of creation rather than destruction is great. Also lots of assurances that her imagination and vision are aligned with CS Lewis and the majority of his fan base that I think are clearly way overstated.

https://t.co/H1CV0iKKhN

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

I didn't hate @AngelStudiosInc's "Angel and the Badman". But I didn't love it either. And it's certainly nowhere near as good as the John Wayne original. My latest for @WNGdotorg.

https://t.co/fuDy0qaUtb

[Joseph Holmes @NormalGuy8]

I can officially say the best "faith-based" film so far this year is about a Muslim hitman dad fighting a Muslim mafia and non-denom Christian vigilantes starring Mahershala Ali and John Cho. See it if you can.

https://t.co/li0IdmaUxM